Nine Hearts
by Toomanybooks16
Summary: She splits her heart between nine people, and forgets to consider the consequences of them tearing it apart.


The dedication of her heart is split nine ways, for the nine people who are nearest to her.

Nine hearts, for nine special people. Pink, blue - blue as the sky -, yellow, orange, purple, brown, green, navy (almost black), and finally red. None of them are perfect, none of them are the slightest stereotypical, but they're all hers, and she loves them all.

The pink one for her sister, fastidious and girly and strong and insipid, but somewhere under there is a real heart, and she loves her for it.

Blue heart for Alice, who has a remarkable ability to love quickly and love well, and is her best friend and confidant, and companion in this art of new motherhood.

Yellow for her mother, who loved her very much, even if she regretted having had kids, losing time to spend with her beloved husband.

Orange for a friend; her most outrageous friend, who wasn't really a friend to begin with, just someone to laugh at in the common room, but underneath has all the vitality and philial love of a best friend and protector, even if there is a dark edge to it. With love, and all that goes with it, he is luminescent as it were with light - he makes the love part of himself, and returns it. But he cannot bring himself to love anyone who does not love him first.

Purple is for her first friend in her new world, because he was just as scared of being and outsider. He is smart and sarcastic and makes her laugh quietly in the library while she labors over her workload, and if there is a side of him she knows of but does not see, well, she knows that he is not necessarily always himself.

Brown for the rat, who is still her friend, even if he gradually slips away from her and everyone else, if only because he believes it is best. He has a self-preservation instinct to rival all others. If his heart is a little smaller than the others, she is the only person who will see these anyway.

The green one for her father, quiet, strong, and a lover of the outdoors, because it looks almost leaf-like. She was always a daddy's girl, right up until the end, not because of disease or the 'movers and shakers' in her world, but because some idiot had drunk a bit too much to be safely driving, and her father was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Navy for him, that old friend, because even if he looks almost to have gone, there is still hope. The night is darkest before dawn. He was the one to end their friendship, and she still hopes he will come and ask for help one day.

Finally, red is for him. She loves all the others, but she is _in love _with him, and he is in love with her, and sometimes when they're together, she can forget the horror around her and just love, and hope. Hope that nothing will go wrong when her stomach has finished swelling, that perhaps this one will be more than an accident in conception and an accident at birth, and a lost one at that. Hope that she will not lose him, because even if she knows he is fighting for her (and for the baby that might be), she is still terrified that one day he will not come home. She does not know what she will do without him - and that, perhaps, is the deepest love of all.

* * *

After it is all over, and the hearts are burnt and blackened and so is her heart of cherished love. But if she was to draw her hearts again, she might draw them differently. The blue and the purple and the orange will be the same - perhaps a little larger even. Green and yellow will be gone - she has left her past behind to move on to the present. Pink will be well-nigh invisible - something else she almost entirely left behind, but will still reach out to if necessary. Brown and navy will also be gone - not because she has moved on, but because they have betrayed her and her love, and chosen the path of no return. Though she may have loved them, and may once have able to let them back, there is always a line to be crossed. The red one will be unchanged, if anything larger. But there will be a new one. Probably gold, maybe white, and loved much, more, most. (except for him - but he has always been the exception, hasn't he?) He child will carry on - and she will love him all the way.


End file.
